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Should You Include an Unsubscribe Link in Your Transactional Email Messages?
Should You Include an Unsubscribe Link in Your Transactional Email Messages?
Transactional and promotional emails are two different types of emails, not only in terms of content but also on the basis of how the mailbox provider treats them. Thus, you have to be very clear of your intention and generate content according to it. While doing so you’ll probably come across a common question – whether to add an unsubscribe link in a transactional email? Let’s find out below.
Before we dive into that discussion, we should know what differentiates a transactional email from a marketing email.
Transactional Email Vs Marketing Email
The difference between transactional emails and marketing emails is pretty clear.
Transactional Emails
Transactional emails carry information about the transactions that a user made. These are free from the advertisement or any type of promotional stuff. These emails are of high priority and sometimes carry confidential information. They are usually sent to inform customers about some account-related activity.
Marketing Emails
These emails contain promotions and advertisements. They are sent to engage users and to attract them with different offers and deals. They are of low importance and are usually sent in CBT Mass Email Sender. Such emails have a high chance of ending up in spam. Marketing emails do not contain any important account-related information besides promotional content.
What Is The Purpose Of An Unsubscribe Link?
Let’s look at what is the purpose of an unsubscribe link in emails. Contrary to the popular belief that it is there to punish the sender, an unsubscribe link should not be considered the same as a user marking an email as spam. Instead of that, it is a form of communication between the receiver and the sender in which the user indicates that he is no longer interested in your products.
What Type Of Emails Should Have An Unsubscribe Link?
Having an unsubscribe link in marketing and promotional emails is necessary. The same is not the case with transactional emails. Although transactional emails can have an unsubscribe link, it is important that it doesn’t look like the one in marketing emails. This is because the user is looking forward to a different type of communication through transactional emails. No one would want to unsubscribe to an email that informs that their account password was changed or something like that.
So instead of an explicit ‘unsubscribe’ option, it would be better to add an ‘email preference’ option. This would give the user a variety of options and they can set email receiving preferences according to their needs without entirely unsubscribing.
What is GDPR?
GDPR is a law that was designed to strengthen a user’s rights on how their data can be handled. When it comes to emails, GDPR requires you to get consent from the receiver before sending emails. Along with that, the user should have an unsubscribe option using which they can unsubscribe from your emails at any time.
How Does GDPR Affect My Outgoing Emails?
If you are sending transactional emails then no need to worry because transactional emails are exempted from GDPR. All these rules are applicable to marketing and promotional emails.
4 Questions To Ask Yourself Before Sending Transactional Emails
Before sending a transactional email, ask yourself the following questions:
Does The Customer Really Need This Transactional Email?
Transactional emails are emails of high importance so you should make sure you are not sending any unimportant or unnecessary transactional emails to your customers as this might affect your sender reputation.
Does The Transactional Email Contain Any Marketing Content?
The difference between transactional and marketing emails is pretty clear. However, this difference starts to vanish if you start adding promotional content to your transactional emails. This is, however, a bad practice and should not be done especially when sending emails to residents of the European Union.
Should I Give An Unsubscribe Option To My Users?
An unsubscribe link is needed for marketing emails, however, it is not needed for a transactional email, as discussed above. You can add an unsubscribe link to your transactional emails but a better choice would be to add an email preference option.
Will My Customers Understand Why They Are Receiving This Email?
The email footer is the best place to explain why your customers are receiving a particular email. You can add a proper message to explain why they might be receiving this email even if they unsubscribed to your marketing and promotional emails.
Keep Your Transactional And Promotional Reputation Separate
Senders should keep an eye on the content of the transactional and marketing emails. The inbox providers are always on the lookout for any suspicious content and do not hesitate in placing emails in the spam folder.
This is why using a standard unsubscribe link in both types of emails may make the reputation of one affect the other.
When deciding upon what to add and what not to add to your emails, remember to be honest with the content and include only important transactional details in the transactional emails and marketing content in the promotional emails. Do not mix these up or you would face a number of problems.
Wrapping up
So in conclusion, adding an unsubscribe link to your transactional emails is a matter of your choice. You can add a link but if you do, make sure it follows a different format than that of the one in marketing emails.
However, it is recommended that instead of an unsubscribe option, you add an email preference option to your transactional emails as they are often too important to be unsubscribed to.
One thing that should be kept in mind is that adding an unsubscribe link is necessary for marketing emails because without that you might end up facing a lot of complications like a fall in sender reputation or even fines.
